Canute released her arm to reach for his goblet. “I wish I could know it for certain,” he muttered. “But it is as the saying has it, ‘Though they fight and quarrel among themselves, the eagles will mate again.’” He looked at her with a half-smile as he refilled his cup, motioning toward the other flagon. “Fill up, and we will drink a toast to their loyalty and to your beard; they appear to be equally in need of encouragement.” Draining it off, he sat staring down into the dregs, twirling the stem thoughtfully between his fingers.
By the time she had shifted her weight twice for each foot, the petitioner ventured to recall him.
“It gives me some hope, to hear what you say about suspecting Edric Jarl,” she said timidly; “for that makes it appear more likely that you will be willing to give me justice on his man.”
“Justice?” The King’s mind came back to her slowly, as from an immense distance. “By Thor, I had forgotten! There have not been so many to me on that errand... Though I take it well that you should trust me... Yes, certainly; I will be king-like once. Stand here before me, while I question you.”
She caught her breath rather sharply as she stepped forward. Would she be able to tell a straight story? She stood with fingers interlacing nervously.
“Tell me first how you are called?”
“I am called Fridtjof Frodesson.”
“Frode of Avalcomb! Now I know where I have heard that name; my father spoke it often, and always with great respect. It will go hard with me if I must return an unfavorable answer to his son. Tell me how his death was brought about.”
Randalin thrust the sobs back from her throat; the tears back from her eyes. Only a clear head could deliver her out of the snare. She began slowly: “Leofwinesson set upon him last night, at the gate of the castle, and slew him. The Englishman had long been covetous of Avalcomb, so that even his fear of you was not so great as his greed. He had five-and-fifty men, and my father but twelve—besides me; he—we—had just come in from hunting. Then he rode over my father’s body into the castle.” She stopped uncertainly to glance at her listener.
The brightness of his eyes startled her, though they were not turned in her direction. They were blazing down into the cup that he was turning and pinching between his fingers. He said, half as though to himself: “Vermin! What would I give if I might take them in my teeth and shake them like the filth-fed rats they are! Ten hundred such do not reach the value of one finger of a warrior like Frode! I knew that the fetters of Thorkel’s craftiness would pinch me some-where—” He broke off and flung the goblet from him, burying his hands in his yellow hair. “How I hate them!” he breathed between his teeth. “How I hate their smooth-tongued Jarl, and all their treacherous hides! Oh, for the day when I no longer need their aid; when I am free to strike!” The joy of his face was a terrible thing to hold in one’s memory.